It’s not a bad funnel adventure at all, and from what I understand this was the author’s first adventure he wrote, and that mean's it’s darn good for a first outing – it’s an interesting premise, a village ground down under the heel of a merciless wizard and rising up to overthrow him, but reading through it I was left with a few questions before I ran it:
=> How do I set this up so the (surviving) 1st-level characters don’t end up with their own personal wizard’s tower at the end of the game?
=> How is the wizard able to do everything he does in the adventure? I mean, he has undead servants, animated brooms, gargoyles, traps, and everything else?
=> This is a powerful wizard – what’s a good way to hobble or handicap the wizard to justify why suddenly a mob of 0-level characters can go in after years of oppression, and knock him off?
=> How can I set up the funnel to feed into 0-level characters that want to end up Wizards or Clerics?
=> How can I make the end encounter with the wizard suspenseful, and a little less ‘big end boss video-game’ in feel?
=> How can I drop story hooks into my ongoing campaign, to take the 1st-level survivors to a future adventure?
So below are some stat blocks, revisions, and review notes from how the adventure played for my group, I hope it will help if you want to run your players through this module, and feel free to borrow or steal any of the modifications I put in.
And of course, if you are a player don’t keep reading … just pass this web link to your DM, and back away slowly … SPOILERS for the original adventure abound …
Introduction
I introduced the adventure, where players were villagers in the small hamlet of Ashtower, and they were oppressed by the evil Bruyan the Distant, and for years the wizard has kidnapped villagers, raided food stores, and terrorized the populace, and most recently, the four children of the Widow Maraket have been stolen from their beds in the middle of the night, and the village is in an uproar, gathering in the village square.
The first thing players did was ask ‘why aren’t we just leaving this crappy little village’? I had to think quickly – I came up with all sorts of heinous things that Bruyan had done -- most notably someone who ran away last year came back a few days later as a shambling undead to wander around the village square for a week, with a sign hung around his neck saying “this is what happens to those who attempt to escape”. That got them sufficiently motivated to stay and slay the wizard …
Going to the tower up on the hill, I wanted to set up a gargoyle theme for a couple reasons – I decided that there was a ‘Gargoyle Curse’ on the entrance that would slowly corrupt people going in to become gargoyles themselves. I tower façade to be hundreds of intertwined gargoyles covering the outside (the fate of those who fully succumbed to the Gargoyle Curse), gargoyles on the roof, and gave any wizard using summon monster a +4 bonus when casting to summon gargoyles (which were the minions that would fly into town, kidnap helpless villagers for the wizard, and bring them back to the tower). It was thematic, and creepy, and explained how the wizard ruled the village.
When the players got to the tower was have every player going through the entrance to make a Fortitude save. It was only DC 5, and I jotted down any character that failed would have a -1 to Initiative. Because players running bands of 0-level characters use the highest initiative modifier for their group, it never came into effect, but it put them all on their toes, and if they had decided to go in and out of the tower, I would have continued to have them roll Fortitude saves, and thought of other small incremental effects as the Gargoyle Curse became more prevalent on them.
The Entrance
Ah, the old ‘fake books in a bookcase trapped to kill players’. First character found a book, pulled, and took 8 hp damage on 1d8. An excellent way to teach new players this isn’t your father’s D&D (but it is your grandfather’s D&D). The group got a lot more cautious after that.
The Main Room
I decided the undead here were Ooze Zombies (as described in the Kitchen).
I also decided the one zombie with the sapphire eyes was the village baker, and changed it to a single enchanted sapphire. The players took the sapphire without ever seeing it’s effect, and they know it’s magic, but don’t know what it does or what the command word is (which is needed unless it’s embedded in an eye socket).
I also described the encountered zombies in familiar terms – one was a PC’s brother-in-law, one was the nice farmer down the road, one was the village weaver, and so on – I tried to make it a little more personal for the PCs, and incite the need for vengeance.
Broom Closet
So I left the animated brooms as-is, but decided that Bruyan had animated them with the Breathe Life spell. For something as trifling as animated brooms, Breathe Life is a 6-for-1 deal per casting in my game, should Wizards want their own clean-up squad at a reasonable spellcasting cost.
Apprentices Bedroom
Since none of the players rolled up wizard apprentices, there were two beaten corpses that had starved to death chained to the bed.
Secret Laboratory
I didn’t like the DCC core mimic, so I revised it and published it in a blog HERE
The Kitchen
So, the Bone Ooze in the cauldron was how Bruyan was able to animate dead – he kept the ooze on a low simmer to keep it warm and happy, and dumped bodies in whenever he needed an undead to command. I decided the bone ooze would only animate and come looking for the PCs if the fire was put out (which the players did, 1d100 turned into 79 minutes which counted down to 29 minutes before the players finished the adventure, so they didn’t run into this creature).
The Carpet Room
I’ll admit it, I've never liked Magic Mouth as a spell – I feel it’s somwehat lame. So I changed out the Wizard’s spell for Cantrip, and used it to whisper threats or yank carpets instead.
So knowing characters needed access to some decent armor and weapons for the final encounter and their eventual adventuring careers, I had two animated suits of scale armor armed with longswords, and two animated suits of hide armor with handaxes. Every time a suit of armor was struck, they could hear a child’s voice asking what was going on, and why was it dark and they couldn’t see (causing some momentary stress, wondering if harming the suits was harming the children). As the suits were defeated (many, many fumble rolls by the suits caused broken weapons and tripped foes), I described the lockets falling out of the collapsing armor bits – the last suit, one of the PCs decided instead of striking the suit with his weapon, he’d try to spot the locked (DC Int Check successfully made) and yanked it out, de-animating it – very nice!
Bruyan’s Bedroom
Here I dropped in some love notes to a fellow sorceress named Virica to the north, and some notes on Hallwicken burial rites, and sketches of death masks, all hooks for my campaign.
The Roof
So the wizard Bruyan was finally met – and he had definitely succumbed a bit to the gargoyle curse. I described him as being greyish in tone, and one of his hands had solidified into an unmoving claw (giving him an armor check penalty to cast spells of -6, but offset by the lit braziers, described below, to only -2).
I also changed the glowing globes to four gargoyles holding braziers that were burning. While they were lit it negated the Initiative Penalty and most of the Gargoyle Curse for the ruler of the tower, but when it went out, the armor check penalty increased and his spell casting checks and AC dropped as the Gargoyle Curse got its full effect on him.
While lit, the braziers offset -4 of the Initiative Penalty and -4 of the Armor Check penalty…
Running the encounter, the awesomest thing was the one character that had previously picked up the blue marble ring and received Patron Bond to Umwansh, and he decided then would be a good time to call for Divine Aid, and rolling a 4 on a d20 (just making it as their Luck was 8 and divine aid had a -4) asking for cleansing rain, which put all the braziers out, reducing Bruyan’s AC and Initiative, which allowed the players to jump on him and beat him to death before he could get an offensive spell off.
The Wizard
So here’s Bruyan the Distant, a 5th level wizard corrupted by the Gargoyle Curse. It looks like the original adventure had him as a 4th level wizard, but I bumped him up to 5th so he’d be a little more survivable at the end encounter, and have the ability to cast the 3rd level spell Breathe Life.
Bruyan the Distant (5th-Level
Wizard), Init +1; Atk dagger +2 melee (1d4+1); AC 14 (+3 from
the gargoyle curse); HD 5d4+5 (18 hp); MV 30’; Act 1d20+1d14; SP spellcaster (+6
to casting checks, 1st – Cantrip, Magic Shield 2nd – Monster
Summoning, Scare; 3rd – Breathe Life); SV Fort +4, Ref +3, Will
+5; AL C; Treasure – Dagger, 8d6 sp, 3d6 gp, unholy amulet that grants +1 to
saving throws.
Conclusion
=> We had Larce, a 1st level
Cleric of Umwansh (passing the ring from one 0-level character who had promised
in exchange for the divine rain to convert the village, to the players other
viable character with a decent PER score to become a cleric).
=> Willow, a 1st level Thief (who
used his new Use Scroll ability to identify the two scrolls – well, one scroll,
since he rolled a 1 on the first attempt, misfiring the first scroll to turn
one of his fellow 0-level characters into a lizard-headed accident for 1 week,
and used the remaining Find Familiar scroll to give his Thief a Raven Focal
Familiar … with the personality to give away shiny things. I just can’t make this up).
=> I also gave every Lawful character in the
party a +1 Luck for extinguishing the Ashtower Braziers, which were a tool for
chaos.
Knowing what I know after having run this,
I would have set up the initial introduction to the adventure to describe more
what the wizard had done to terrorize the village, how he punished runaways,
and such to make the initial motivations for players stronger.
A great time was had by all (who survived)!
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